


Determination

by Fyre



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-29
Updated: 2012-06-29
Packaged: 2017-11-08 20:21:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 557
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/447149
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fyre/pseuds/Fyre
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Belle knows the Queen wants to take something precious from her, but she isn't willing to let it go.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Determination

The witch would watch.

She would stand and she would smile and she would watch.

Belle never ever moved, not after the first time, when it made the witch’s smile widen. It was the only thing she could do to prove to herself that she was brave and strong. The clerics were cruel, far crueller than her father, when he ushered her - urgent and loving - into the witch’s protection, in case He came calling for her again.

Protection.

The witch lied.

The clerics were a lie too. The was no impurity in her. Belle was certain of that. One kiss didn’t turn a girl into a fallen woman, a harlot of the demon. That wasn’t the reason that she was punished over and over and over again. 

At first she didn’t understand.

It took days, weeks, before she watched the woman’s face, and saw the hollowness that hid in her eyes. 

It wasn’t cruelty or barbary that drove this woman. Once, she too must have had a true love, and now, all that was left was a torn and gaping hole. As if someone had reached inside her and ripped out her heart.

True love made her what she was. 

Losing it.

That was when Belle knew that the woman could not break her, not with all the clerics with all the whips and scourges in all the land. True love’s kiss was powerful enough to break any curse. It was powerful enough to - for a moment - make Rumpelstiltskin into a man again. It was pure and blessed and wonderful and above anything else, it was true.

Some things you can lie about, but when your curse breaks and your features turn human, and for a split-second, you are as you were, you cannot deny that your part of the true love is just as true.

Belle knew it the moment his features turned. He loved her. He truly loved her. 

The witch had taken her from her home, her family, her freedom, but there was one thing that could and would not be taken. Even though he had cast her out. Even though she had not stormed back in and given him a piece of her mind. Even though they might never see one another again. Despite all of those things, the witch could not take Belle’s love away.

She loved Rumpelstiltskin and knew he loved her, and it was true and it was powerful and even if it had only been for that pure and perfect moment when her lips met his, then that would be enough.

Belle wrapped her hands around the bars, and she held them, and she heard the whip sing and cry. It hurt, but she only kept her eyes on her captor. The witch had lost true love, and now, Belle knew she was bent on taking it from anyone else she could, making them feel the cold hollow emptiness that she did, simply so she wasn’t suffering alone.

“Not today,” Belle whispered, resting her brow against the bars, her eyes fixed on the witch’s face. “Not ever.”

She might not have been a warrior, a witch, a Queen, but Belle knew one thing above all else: she was a woman who had love, did love, and would love, and nothing anyone could do would take that away from her.


End file.
